As from February 1st all former KGB agents and collaborators in Lithuania are required to register with a special commission of the Department of State Security.
Published:
3 February 2000 y., Thursday
If former agents fail to register, the Lithuanian authorities have threatened to make public their previous activities. The law of registration, acknowledgement, confession and protection of individuals who secretly collaborated with the special services of the former USSR_ was passed by the Seym (Lithuanian parliament) in November and a special commission of officials from the Department of State Security, the Center of Genocide and Resistance and representatives of the Prosecutor-General_s office has been created. The law states that anyone who collaborated with the KGB must, in the course of 6 months (i.e. before August 1st), phone the Department of State Security and to arrange an appointment with members of the abovementioned commission in order to recount his/her activities. According to a member of the Interdepartmental Lustration Commission Rimantas Martinkenas, the commission is interested primarily in information, documents and objects concerning KGB activities. All the collected information will be classified and the Department of State Security will, upon request, protect the confessors from attempts to force them to collaborate or from any other violence by special services. If the former collaborators do not come forward within the time limit or deliberately give false information about themselves, other persons or the activities of special services, then details of their collaboration will be made public. These people would then be subject to a Lithuanian law, which forbids such individuals from becoming state employees or working in the education system.
Martinkenas says that at the time of its abolishment, there were about four thousand people in Lithuania who were in some way connected with the KGB. For the whole post-war Soviet period, the figure amounted to about 30,000 individuals from all social groups.
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Militants in the Philippines have killed a head teacher from this school in Jolo. An official from the army said the man was beheaded.
more »
Ruca is no ordinary police dog. Instead of sniffing out drugs and explosives, he puts his nose to fighting the piracy industry.
more »
Afghans vent their anger on the streets of Kabul. They accuse American troops of burning a copy of Islam's holiest book, the Koran, during a raid in Maidan Wardak province last week.
more »
73% of Europeans consider poverty to be a widespread problem in their country while 89% want urgent action by their government to tackle the problem.
more »
Parliament adopted three urgent resolutions on the need for the EU to impose sanctions further to the violent repression of a demonstration in Guinea Conakry, the abolition of the death penalty in Iran, and access for humanitarian organisations to the 250,000 civilians displaced by the civil war and held in camps in Sri Lanka.
more »
The award ceremony of the Lorenzo Natali Prizes for Journalism took place today during the 2009 European Development Days.
more »
The European Parliament's 2009 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought has been awarded to Russian civil rights defence organization Memorial, and their three representatives Oleg Orlov, Sergei Kovalev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, as well as all other human rights defenders in Russia.
more »
Taking into account changes on domestic money markets AB DnB NORD Bankas, a member of international financial group shall change individual and corporate time deposit rates from October 22.
more »
Wild birds know no borders, so the conservation of endangered species requires trans-frontier cooperation.
more »
New safety standards for children's sleeping items - including duvets, baby sleeping bags and cot mattresses - which should help to prevent many cot –related accidents, were given a green light today by EU Member States.
more »